I Am a Victim of Telephone

When I lie down to sleep dream the Wishing Well it rings

"Have you a new play for the broken down theater?"

When I write in my notebook poem it rings

"Buster Keaton is under the Brooklyn bridge on Frankfurt and Pearl..."

When I unsheathe my skin extend my cock toward someone's thighs fat or

         thin, boy or girt

Tingaling-"Please get him out of jail... the police are crashing down"

When I lift the soupspoon to my lips, the phone on the floor begins

        purring

"Hello it's me-I'm in the park two broads from Iowa... nowhere to sleep

        last night...hit'em in the mouth"

When I muse at smoke crawling over the roof outside my street window

purifying Eternity with my eye observation of gray vaporous columns in

       the sky

ring ring "Hello this is Esquire be a dear and finish your political

       commitment manifesto"

When I listen to radio presidents roaring on the convention floor

the phone also chimes in "Rush up to Harlem with us and see the riots"

Always the telephone linked to all the hearts of the world beating at once

crying my husband's gone my boyfriend's busted forever my poetry was

        rejected

won't you come over for money and please won't you write me a piece of

        bullshit

How are you dear can you come to Easthampton we're all here bathing in

        the ocean we're all so lonely

and I lie back on my palette contemplating $50 phone bill, broke, drowsy,

       anxious, my heart fearful of the fingers dialing, the deaths, the

       singing of telephone bells

ringing at dawn ringing all afternoon ringing up midnight ringing now

       forever.